The present application is directed to manufacturing, remanufacturing, or repairing replaceable imaging components, and more specifically to replacing imaging cartridge electronic circuits.
In the imaging industry, there is a growing market for the remanufacture and refurbishing of various types of replaceable imaging cartridges such as toner cartridges, drum cartridges, inkjet cartridges, and the like. These imaging cartridges are used in imaging devices such as laser printers, xerographic copiers, inkjet printers, facsimile machines, and all-in-one devices. Imaging cartridges, once spent, are unusable for their originally intended purpose. Without a refurbishing process, these cartridges would simply be discarded, even though the cartridge itself may still have potential life. As a result, techniques have been developed specifically to address this issue. These processes may entail, for example, the disassembly of the various structures of the cartridge, replacing ink or toner, cleaning, adjusting or replacing any worn components and reassembling the imaging cartridge.
Some imaging cartridges include an electronic circuit that may be in the form of a printed circuit board (referred to as a “chip”). The electronic circuit may include memory for storing and reporting information about the cartridge and its interface with a particular type of imaging device. During the remanufacturing process, it may be desirable or necessary to replace the electronic circuit to maintain full functionality and reporting capabilities of the imaging cartridge. Replacing the electronic circuit may involve removing the existing electronic circuit in a manner that permits quick and secure installation of the replacement electronic circuit, while maintaining accurate placement of the replacement electronic circuit on the imaging cartridge.